Pride and Premeditation (Jane Austen Murder Mystery #1)(23)

Wickham laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of telling you not to pursue your investigation. I have a feeling that I would be met with fierce resistance.”

“You’d be correct.”

They continued to speak of business, and Lizzie regaled him with stories from the firm and her successes, but it wasn’t long before they arrived on Gracechurch Street. Lizzie glanced toward the illuminated windows of her house and could tell even at this early evening hour that her mother and sisters had returned home. She tried not to show dismay as she stopped Wickham four doors down, before the Myerses’ town house.

“Thank you for escorting me home,” she said. “And for not taking me to jail.”

“I’m obligated to advise you not to enter any more houses uninvited,” he said with mock gravity, but she could see his dimple so she knew he was teasing. “I hope you discover the answers you’re seeking. If you ever need assistance, please come find me. Messages can be left at the Crooked Cat—do you know of it?”

It was an alehouse not far from her father’s firm. Lizzie had never been inside, but she nodded. It might be nice to have a Runner on her side, just in case.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wickham.”

“It was a pleasure, Miss Bennet.”

She forced herself to walk away then and to not look back. As she approached the house, she saw the curtains twitch. Please, please, please be Jane, she thought.

But she had no such luck. Lydia met her at the door, eyes shining with mischievous excitement. “Who was that?”

“Who?” Lizzie asked, feigning ignorance.

“The young man who escorted you home!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The man—”

“Hush!” Lizzie hissed.

Lydia looked victorious, and Lizzie knew that she’d made a mistake by showing her hand. “He’s handsome,” Lydia teased.

“I suppose,” Lizzie allowed, knowing full well Mr. Wickham was quite good-looking.

“What’s his name? How’d you make his acquaintance? What does his family do?”

Lizzie felt a headache coming on. “Lydia, what I do in my spare time is none of your concern. He is no one of consequence.”

But her attempt at superiority backfired spectacularly when Lydia scowled. “Tell me, or I’ll tell Mama a strange man brought you to our door.”

Lizzie raised her gaze heavenward. Why did she spend her time pursuing lawbreakers when she lived with a criminal mastermind? Lydia was becoming more and more conniving by the day. “Fine. His name is Wickham. He’s a Runner, and we’re merely consulting on a case.”

“Consulting on a case.” Lydia sighed, as if it were a promise of marriage. “What’s the crime? Theft? Did he steal your breath away?”

Lizzie rolled her eyes and pushed past her sister to the stairs.

“I wouldn’t mind if he made off with my heart.”

“You would fall in love with the first man who winked at you!” Lizzie tossed back.

“If I am ever kidnapped by a man like him, don’t pay the ransom!”

“You’ve read too many novels!”

Lydia’s delighted giggles followed her upstairs. Despite her sensible nature, Lizzie couldn’t quite shake the memory of Wickham’s easy smile and admiring gaze. How he listened and asked all the right questions. His gentle teasing tone and earnest offer of assistance, should she need it. Their relationship was strictly professional, she told herself.

But she would not object to running into him again.





Seven


In Which Lizzie Reconsiders Various Matters of Friendship and Family



BY SOME MIRACLE, LIZZIE made it upstairs and behind her bedroom door without attracting anyone else’s attention. The first thing she did was examine the button she’d plucked from Mr. Hurst’s window frame. Her left hand was cramped from clutching it for so long, but when she relaxed her grip she was disappointed.

It was an inch wide and polished, finely made but unremarkable. The shank on the back was torn, and if Lizzie had to guess, it had caught against the windowsill while the person climbed in or out of Mr. Hurst’s bedchamber. Other than that, there was nothing to distinguish it from the hundreds of other copper buttons she would find in London. From the size, she guessed it might have come from a piece of outerwear, such as a jacket.

The best she could do was ask Bingley if he owned an article of clothing that held such a button—if he did not, she could eliminate him as a suspect. But it was flimsy, circumstantial evidence. Who was to say that if he had owned this button, he hadn’t dumped the jacket?

Lizzie secreted the button in her writing box, the one place her mother and younger sisters wouldn’t intrude, and withdrew her sketchbook. She wrote down as much as she could remember—descriptions of Hurst’s study, the strange arrangement of the furniture in the drawing room, the scratches in the floor, Abigail’s account of the Hursts and Bingleys, and finally her memory of the crime scene. At the very bottom, she wrote and underlined, Missing pocket watch and Caroline persuaded Louisa to leave.

Lizzie was still thinking about her next move when she woke the next morning. She wrote a quick note to Bingley inquiring after a description of the missing pocket watch and then joined Jane at the breakfast table. Mr. Bennet had left before they even rose, and Mrs. Bennet and the three younger Bennet sisters slept late. Lizzie treasured this time alone with her older sister—and the opportunity to eat as much strawberry preserves as she liked without her mother’s criticism.